Joe Wright Finds His Peter Pan For Warner Bros. Reimagining

Never say never, as the old saying goes, but feel free to say it with "land" behind it all you want during this story. Warner Bros. has been hot on the trailer of the young actor who will lead (or follow within) their upcoming reimagining of Peter Pan, and now they’ve found him, without the help of Tinkerbell no less. Newcomer Levi Miller will make his feature debut in Pan, British director Joe Wright’s follow-up to 2012’s Anna Karenina.

The whole point of Wright’s U.K. casting calls was to find an unknown actor to take the part, according to THR, and Miller is just that. His acting resume consists of a single episode of Fox’s shortlived sci-fi series Terra Nova, and two short films. One of those is Gerald Lambkin’s imaginative Great Adventures, a preview for which you can see below.

And before that he played a boy who brings a Holocaust survivor out of his shell in Katrina Irawati Graham’s drama Akiva. You guessed it! You can watch a trailer for that as well.

We don’t get much of a sense of his prowess from those two videos, but he’ll have some seriously talented company around to guide him along the way. And even when Wright’s films haven’t been the greatest, the casting is consistently spot-on. As such, we’ve decided to give Miller the "We Don’t Believe You’ll Be the Next Jake Lloyd" brand of approval.

In the film, he’ll play a young orphan whose not exactly enjoyable London existence is disrupted when he is found and taken to Neverland, where he must do some sort of battle with the evil pirate Blackbeard, as played by the often bearded Hugh Jackman. This version of the story will of course take a different approach, so I’m not sure where Garrett Hedlund’s Hook fits into the equation, but you can bet he won’t be peachy keen on Peter Pan running amok with childish glee. Rooney Mara recently signed on to play the Native American Tiger Lily, which doesn’t exactly match up with THR’s claim that this film is "using an international cast to present the characters in a new way," unless using white actors as Native Americans is a "new way."

Old or new, the magic will fly into theaters (and never grow up) on July 17, 2015. How do you guys feel about a fresh face stepping into this somewhat iconic role?

Nick Venable
Assistant Managing Editor

Nick is a Cajun Country native and an Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on TV and features. His humble origin story with CinemaBlend began all the way back in the pre-streaming era, circa 2009, as a freelancing DVD reviewer and TV recapper.  Nick leapfrogged over to the small screen to cover more and more television news and interviews, eventually taking over the section for the current era and covering topics like Yellowstone, The Walking Dead and horror. Born in Louisiana and currently living in Texas — Who Dat Nation over America’s Team all day, all night — Nick spent several years in the hospitality industry, and also worked as a 911 operator. If you ever happened to hear his music or read his comics/short stories, you have his sympathy.